Spoilers, for those who were crazy enough not to watch all of this epicness live.
And so it had arrived. The day we'd all been waiting for for months. I can't even explain the excitement I felt as I headed out to Yongsan yesterday. This honestly felt like a rather unfortunate year to be in Korea; half of my time here has been the long offseason: nothing to watch, nowhere to go. But now, all of that stopped mattering, because Proleague had once again started. 8 teams, 4 matches, 2 days. Nothing would make me miss even a single moment.
11/26 - SKT vs. T8 and KT vs. ACE
I, and three other TLers (you may know them as "the white guys" that kept getting shown on broadcast), made it to the I'Park mall pretty early to attend the opening ceremony. However, there were already some 200+ people there and they ran out of seats, so we were forced to line up outside and missed the ceremony. Later, they opened up the standing room in the back, but the place was just so packed, I was squished and could barely even see anything T-T
I was hoping that SKT would win, specifically with wins by Bisu and Sun for my FPL, but that Team 8 would put up a good fight, with Jaedong owning Fantasy to take it to a 5th game, where Bisu would destroy Killer or something. Unfortunately, that was not to be. I felt pretty terrible for the Dong after his defeat (by BeSt of all people). But it's okay, you'll annihilate KT on Tuesday.
Bunkie being a bitch and blocking my already limited view.
SKT got new jackets. They're alright, but I wish the orange uniform would hurry up and go away.
My boys made me proud and scored me big points. Why is SKToss line so amazing? ^__^
SKT WINNERS! <3
Team 8. lol, Coach Joo took off his baller sunglasses.
Next game, KT vs. ACE.
I really wanted to go the SKT fanmeet, but was too scared I'd lose my hard earned seat if I left it. We sat on the KT side, where I honestly was rooting for KT for the first few matches. Flash showed us the godly results of his surgery upgrades, but man, Hoejja, what happened? After being so clutch and finally escaping Paewang status, that was just a disappointing performance. Ggaemo completely won me over with his fantastic game though, and I ended up switching sides, hoping ACE would win (and yes, I have no sense of loyalty to any team that's not SKT or Khan). FBH did not disappoint, and gave ACE their first shocking reverse all-kill victory against the defending champions. His little leap ceremony thing at the end was cute too :D
The KT fangirls are so insane. They brought truckloads of food for the players. Flash spent a better part of the day staring intensely at those bananas. I'm surprised he didn't shoot lasers out of his eyes and set them on fire.
AND THE WINNERS! ALL HAIL AIRFORCE ACE!
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11/27 - CJ vs. STX, Samsung vs. Woongjin
There were less people than yesterday, but still a good hundred or so. Let me say now that watching BW at the stadium can be a pretty tiring and starving experience. None of us ate for 7 hours on Saturday, and were pretty much dying of hunger after the games. But CJ and STX are kind and thoughtful to fans. CJ provided drinks and sandwiches, while STX gave everyone pizza and soda. Where else in the world is it possible to go to a stadium to watch your favorite players play amazing games for free, AND they feed you? God I love PL.
CJ and their bright yellow uniforms. They look better in person though, I swear.
Marcus writing his love letter to Effort. Sweden's #1 CJ fan! hehe.
And there he was! CJ's Hawkeye, Alien, and Messiah, return to us after so long. Gotta say though, that hair is just... ick.
Leta and Hydra watching Effort give STX a taste of the CJ power, after they themselves had done the same.
After the games, STX had a fanmeet outside. It was Classic's birthday today, so the fangirls gave him a cake and we all sang happy birthday to him.
Okay. So you know how the CJ yellow uniforms are rather bad? THEIR JACKETS ARE SO BADASS THOUGH, IT MAKES UP FOR IT COMPLETELY. God, those are the coolest fucking jackets ever.
Moment of the day: The CJ manager or coach was extremely kind, spoke English, and promised us that we'd get to meet the players and that Effort would also give us all CJ shirts, because he was friends with Mani (thanks Mani!!) and knew about TL, haha. So we got shirts, and also got our CJ banners signed by all of the players, except Snow, who seriously spent the entire fucking time sitting on a bench, talking to ONE girl (girlfriend???). From left to right: Hydra, Leta, Movie, Effort, Horang2, and Skyhigh. This is definitely going on my wall forever <3
David modeling the CJ shirt. Looking sharp fo sho.
Next match: Samsung Khan vs. Woongjin Stars
When the match started, I honestly was pretty worried that Khan would fall prey to Woongjin's zergs again, but these boys didn't let me down (except Grape, who thought it would be fun to let Free ruin my anti team. WHYYYY). Stork showed Zero what he was made of, and made me feel less insane for blowing 8 points on him for my main team. And Jangbi, man can you say PvT god? Also proud of Reality for not letting everyone down. Khan fighting!!
The first sign I've ever made, featuring chibi dinotoss. Did anyone see it? :3
Stork sitting next to Shine, being all BFF, haha. It was kind of a strange sight, but I think I've started to warm up to Shine. Don't you dare knock Bisu out of another OSL though D:<
January makes the most fantastic faces.
I'm so used to the blue jackets, black on Khan seems strange o.o
Our Captain-nim makes his opening address :>
Cute Jangbang~
Roro is the most adorable thing on the planet. Shine had to go up and sing a song as part of the "new member" ceremony, but Roro was too shy to perform anything.
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And so, that was weekend #1. I don't know if they'll keep being this great, but god I sure hope so. The more time I spend watching Starcraft and seeing these amazing players, the more I love it all.
tl;dr - Proleague fighting! BW for life <3
Oh, and Taekbang is the best~ My 2 man FPL team will totally win ^^
The CJ manager or coach was extremely kind, spoke English, and promised us that we'd get to meet the players and that Effort would also give us all CJ shirts, because he was friends with Mani (thanks Mani!!) and knew about TL, haha.
Yeah your sign showed up during the stream, when I saw the drawing I thought it looked similar to that proleague picture you drew but I wasn't sure, but now I know. Thanks for sharing.
On November 28 2011 00:45 Caladbolg wrote: Wow! But you were a terrible SKT fan, missing a fan meet just to watch KT...
... get stomped by ACE! Woohoo!
(though thankfully Flash played a nice, intense game)
Man, if you were stuck in a crowd of Koreans who are all taller than you and you cant see anything and your back hurts and feet hurt after 2 hours of this, you wouldn't give up a seat for anything either T__T
It's okay, I'll go to the next one when SKT stomps some slightly less popular team ^^
On November 28 2011 02:44 StarStruck wrote: Awesome pictures man, they showed you guys a lot! :D
I... don't think so. Or well, not me anyway. I wasn't one of the tall white guys. I was the tiny little asian girl NEXT to them, but who was always blocked by someone taller lol
PL truly is amazing. Not only do you get to see the most epic game ever being played by the biggest ballers on earth, but you get free food, and team memorabilia. Though I do appreciate the blogs and pictures, I am mad jealous...
It doesn't look like much has changed since I retired ^_^ OGN's studio is by far the superior venue imo (aside from the tiny press room/backstage areas.) This makes me kind of nostalgic ^_^
On November 28 2011 16:48 NeverGG wrote: It doesn't look like much has changed since I retired ^_^ OGN's studio is by far the superior venue imo (aside from the tiny press room/backstage areas.) This makes me kind of nostalgic ^_^
I definitely agree about that (not that we have much of a choice in the matter anymore... RIP MBC T_T). It's bigger, nicer, and I like being able to sit next to the team bench and see the commentators. Only thing I don't like about the OGN stadium is that we have to go through 5 floors of those terrorizing electronics salespeople to get there xD
Aww. Why don't you come too some time, if it's not inconvenient? Not to work or anything, just to watch. I bet the players would be happy to see you again
On November 28 2011 16:48 NeverGG wrote: It doesn't look like much has changed since I retired ^_^ OGN's studio is by far the superior venue imo (aside from the tiny press room/backstage areas.) This makes me kind of nostalgic ^_^
I definitely agree about that (not that we have much of a choice in the matter anymore... RIP MBC T_T). It's bigger, nicer, and I like being able to sit next to the team bench and see the commentators. Only thing I don't like about the OGN stadium is that we have to go through 5 floors of those terrorizing electronics salespeople to get there xD
Aww. Why don't you come too some time, if it's not inconvenient? Not to work or anything, just to watch. I bet the players would be happy to see you again
Actually you don't :D There's a lift next to the Dunkin Doughnuts which will take you straight up to the 8th floor and then you can just get the escalator up to the 9th from there That'd be fun actually ^_^ I haven't been in forever, and it'd be nice to see the old haunt again.
omg I totally took a screen capture of your dinotoss poster and was going to post in awesome Brood War screen shots :3 Never thought I would see it in HIGH DEFINITION.
On November 29 2011 16:46 Symmetry wrote: So how long'd the shirt end up being on you?
You were good company Kiett, even if I made fun of you a lot Hope to see you at more proleague!
Huh. I haven't tried it on yet. Okay, let me see...
Not too bad! It's a little big and loose, but it fits pretty decently considering I'm about 8 inches shorter than the average CJ player. And also not a guy. xP
Definitely! There's no PL this weekend, and the one after that is at WCG in Busan (are you going?), but the weekend after THAT is SKT vs. Khan. No way am I missing that!
EPT
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